The Lop-Eared Rabbit's Wish - Chapter 1

I hadn’t given it much thought when I first bought the rabbit.

I did it simply because he was dying, barely breathing in his cage.

Grime stained his snow-white fur. His pink eyes were half closed, like rose petals on the verge of withering.

He was beautiful, but already beginning to fade.

He looked neither happy to be alive nor sorry to leave it.

The utter hopelessness of him struck something in me, stopping me amid the surging crowd.

This was the roughest district in Mist City, nowhere near my usual route. I had only taken this shortcut home because I’d worked late into the night.

As though guided by some unseen force, I reached out.

Until then, he had lain motionless in his cage, less like a living creature than a ball of fluff some child had played with and thrown away.

Pitiful. Miserable.

But when I drew close, he rubbed his face against my fingertip through the narrow bars.

So soft. And his breath was warm.

“Don’t touch it if you’re not buying.” The owner stormed out of the shop, openly hostile. “Move. You’re blocking my business.”

After barking the warning at me, he kicked the cage. “Bad-luck thing. You’d better not die, or I’ll eat you.”

The innocent lop-eared rabbit curled in on himself, trying to disappear.

I stopped the owner. “I’ll buy him.”

His attitude changed at once. His beady eyes darted between my coat and my handbag.

“What a kindhearted lady you are.” He gave me an ingratiating smile. “The little fellow may look rough now, but once he’s cleaned up, he’ll be a beautiful rabbit again—”

“Just name your price.” I cut off his rambling impatiently.

I decided to take the rabbit for treatment first.

Cradled against my chest, he burrowed into the collar of my coat, a tiny ball of warmth.

Eventually, I found a veterinary clinic that was still open in the middle of the night.

He trembled throughout the examination and would only calm down when I held a finger against his cheek.

“His injuries aren’t serious, but he’s been starved for too long. He’s malnourished.” The vet frowned. “Rabbits can suffer from separation anxiety. If you aren’t especially careful with this one, he could easily become depressed.”

“Pets can get depressed too?” I stroked one of his long ears. “What should I do?”

“Stay with him,” the vet answered succinctly.

Once we were home, the rabbit seemed to recover some of his energy. He looked around curiously, though he remained pressed tight against my leg.

I sat on the sofa and leafed through a thick book titled *108 Things to Know About Raising Rabbits*.

“Bathing rabbits is not recommended. Their immune systems are weak, and a bath can cause colds, pneumonia, or a stress response.”

At that, I patted his furry little head. “You’re even more delicate than I imagined. What am I supposed to do? I can’t let you stay filthy forever.”

His listless, drooping ears seemed to twitch twice. He stared up at me with wide, round pink eyes.

Was he offended?

“I didn’t mean I dislike you.” I couldn’t help laughing. “The book says I can use dry shampoo. I’ll buy some tomorrow, but I’m afraid you’ll have to stay a little grubby tonight.”

I wrapped him in a blanket and headed for the bathroom.

The moment I stepped inside, however, I heard scratching at the door.

When I opened it, the rabbit tumbled headfirst into my arms.

Had he been about to ram the door if I didn’t let him in?

I sighed.

The vet had been right. He was terribly clingy. If his owner vanished from sight for even a moment, he grew frantic.

“Oh dear, you’ll get wet in here.” I lifted him carefully onto a shelf. “Will you wait here for me?”

The rabbit shook his head and leaped onto the sink.

Then something astonishing happened. He turned on the faucet by himself and even adjusted the water until it was warm.

That was far too unlikely to be a coincidence.

“Do you… want a bath?”

At the sight of me stammering, he blinked several times, looking rather pleased with himself.

Strange. How could I read an expression on a rabbit’s face?

As if I weren’t shocked enough already, he dipped a paw into the stream to test the temperature. Before I could react, he slid from the rim of the sink into the water like a child going down a slide. His enormous ears floated up beside him.

Honestly, it was unbearably cute.

Coming to my senses, I scrambled to scoop him out, but the moment he landed in my palms, he jumped right back in.

We repeated the performance several times. He was having the time of his life.

By the time I was panting from exhaustion, I gave up, stripped off my clothes, and stepped beneath the shower.

“All right, I understand.” I washed as if waging a battle, hoping to finish as quickly as possible so I could dry him afterward. “I won’t leave you behind again, not even when I’m taking a shower.”

My eyes were closed.

So I never noticed the tips of his ears, threaded through with tiny blood vessels, turning red enough to burn.